In just a few hours, I’m headed to the hospital for a procedure to hopefully figure out the cause of my chronic headaches and intracranial hypertension, and I wanted to share about it with you.
Last year, when I was hospitalized with what was then diagnosed as idiopathic intracranial hypertension, I shared that I’d been having non stop headaches, and my headaches still haven’t gone away. I’ve been having low grade to moderate headaches every day since then and it’s been a real burden. This is with taking medication to reduce the production of cerebrospinal fluid and losing weight to help with the intracranial hypertension.
I mentioned that I went to the doctor who found what he suspected to be eagle syndrome, bones pressing on my jugular vein, which can cause a buildup of pressure intracranially, but then when I went to the eagle syndrome expert, he thought that that wasn’t the issue and that the problem was critical narrowing of my sigmoid sinuses in my brain, which also causes pressure to build up.
For that, he decided to send me to do a cerebral angiogram, a diagnostic catheterization where they stick something up my veins all the way to my brain (and also my jugular in my case to check regarding the eagle syndrome) with contrast to measure the pressure in the narrowed areas to see if that area does, in fact, have high pressure. If it does, they decide if they should do a stent to open up the area to allow more blood flow through that part of the brain, or in the case of the jugular, it would require surgery to remove the styloid process.
I thought I would have this on February 19, a week before my social psychology final, which I worried would affect my final, but when I went all the way to the hospital, a 3 hour drive away, I found out that it was just to rubber stamp the paperwork that the eagle syndrome expert gave me regarding the cerebral angiogram. It was only then that they booked me for the cerebral angiogram, which I am having tomorrow morning. They told me to come to the hospital tonight where I will be hospitalized, and then in the morning at 8 am, we’ll have the procedure. Great. I then called them up to ask them about driving home afterwards, because chatgpt said something about being unable to drive after, especially a 3 hour drive, and they said I wouldn’t be released that day, at the very least I’ll only be released in two days, but possibly I’ll be hospitalized longer, it depends on a lot of factors, I assume if they do the stent and how I react to the stent.
I have no idea what will be and the fact that there’s such an open ended answer about how long I’ll be staying is a stress, especially since I have family plans in 3 nights from now, and I really hope I’ll be out of the hospital by then, but if not, the kids will just have to go without me, which will be sad.
Not knowing how long I’ll be hospitalized also means that deciding how much and what to pack is complicated, since I can’t just have family or friends bring me what I need, since I’ll be a 3 hour drive away (though a few local friends did offer to visit me, but they won’t be able to bring me things from home).
My car is also an issue, because when it comes to driving home, I might not be up to driving, depending on how I feel. I could potentially go to the hospital by public transportation which would make it a five hour journey instead of a 3 hour one, each way… but I decided that that isn’t what I want to do. Instead, I’ll be driving and parking on a side street nearish to the hospital so that I don’t have to pay the exhorbitant daily price for the hospital parking lot, and if I’m not well enough to drive home and need to take public transportation home, I can come back another day to pick up my car, not the end of the world. I’m just hoping that taking my car back home won’t be a problem.
I’m writing this post in advance, not at the hospital like I’ve done in the past, or after the fact, because I have no idea how I’ll be feeling. I hope I’ll be feeling well enough, and I hope they’ll decide to stent me and it’ll be a good fix for these headaches that I’ve been dealing with, and I’ll be able to go home quickly, but there are no guarantees.
I will try to update y’all about what happens after the procedure and let you know when I’m on the other end.
